Cutting Setup Time

The fundraising is complete, your building lease is secure, everything is falling into place…and why not? When God is in it who can be against it? Right? All the preparation for the big launch has been carefully planned out. You’ve consoled with everyone under the sun about what to do and what not to do. Its Time….

But when it comes down to it…not one launch is the same as the other. People are different, buildings are different and they bring different challenges. A big proponent is how budgets are different, and with that “making it work” comes into play and when you’re making it work stress can become part of the equation.

In this article I wanted to share some insight on what I’ve seen working with different new plants. I would like to shed some light on some simple organic ideas that may prevent some volunteer burn out. Keeping your volunteers happy and not overworked is the key to healthy media teams.

It pre Launch day! Volunteers pour into the building like sugar ants and begin the setup process. For some reason during pre launch there is this need to see how fast we can get setup. This is great to see but the more important thing to gain from the pre launch setup is the “Sysem”. The system is the written plan of attack.

I visited a Church in New Jersey that was spending about 60+ minutes setting up. This required the volunteer to arrive earlier then most churches and stay later. By breaking down the setup and getting creative you can easily get in and out in 20 Minutes. First we took the acoustic drums and mounted them on a drum riser that was on wheels. As seen in the pictures, The mics were mounted to the drums and wired to the snake head that was permanently mounted to the drum riser base. The drums were mounted to the riser with “U” clamps and strap. The riser could fit through a single door opening and could roll right onto the trailer. This eliminated the setup of the drums (10 min) and Micing the drums (5 Min). Next we recommend a multi-pin snake and all-in-one console rack combo that holds all the wireless, DSP, and drawers for mics and DIs. This will allow keeping all the gear wired so when it’s time to setup you connect one snake cable.

Snaking out your stage cabling will also cut down setup time. This is where you run all your stage mic and monitor sends where you want then zip tie them together making a snake. At tear down these can be rolled up and left plugged into the snake mounted to the drum riser. Color coding your snakes and cables also help.

Carting your speakers or adding casters to your subs will also cut setup time. Imagine rolling your speakers off the trailer and setting them in place, running a power cord and your done. It also keeps your volunteers from lifting heavy equipment.

There are so many creative ways to make setup easy and like I said, no plants are 100% alike. If you would like more ideas or have a situation you want looked at give us a call.